The US Government Keeps Raising Its 'Secret Keeping' Budget

Money spent on unclassified security classification systems have more than doubled in the past 10 years.

The amount spent by U.S. government agencies to classify information rose $1.2 billion to $11.36 billion last year, but the estimate leaves out key intelligence operations.The Information Security Oversight Office’s (ISOO) 2011 cost report discloses a 12 per cent increase from 2010 for the security classification systems of 41 executive branch agencies, including the Department of defence (DoD).

But the report did not tally money spent by some of the most secretive government agencies like Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the defence Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency (NSA).

The double-digit increase in what was disclosed of total security classification may have had to do with WikiLeaks — the anti-secrecy group began disclosing hundreds of thousands classified U.S. documents beginning with “Collateral Murder” in April 2010.